The ability to provide effective communication systems for authorities or government bodies to communicate with the general population is fundamental to good governance and public safety. The type of information that is to be communicated across such communication systems may vary from general updates on changes to public services and the like, through to important information relating to potential disaster warnings and evacuation information. Whatever the type of information that is to be conveyed, the challenge resides in providing systems that enable the information to be targeted towards the relevant individual or groups of individuals, that require such information in a manner that can be received through normal communication devices in the possession of those target groups or individuals.
In this regard, a variety of broadcast systems have been proposed for this purpose, with varying degrees of success. A broadcast system that is able to indiscriminately broadcast a message over a wide area has the ability to communicate a message to a large population. However, in situations where the message may only be relevant to a small proportion of that population, such a broadcast system has the potential to cause undue concern and/or panic to those individuals to which the message is not relevant, which can hamper emergency services and create mass confusion across the general population. Another problem with many proposed broadcast systems is that they rely upon dedicated equipment to be purchased by the target individual(s) to receive and decipher the information being broadcast. Hence, without access to the appropriate equipment, some individual(s) are unable to receive and act upon the information being broadcast, greatly reducing the effectiveness of the system as a communication means for disseminating important information.
Further, as the need to broadcast information is often as a result of a catastrophic event or natural disaster, such as a bushfire, cyclone, tsunami, terrorist attack, or the like, most proposed communication systems are largely reliant upon the presence of a large amount of pre-existing infrastructure, such as transmission towers or mobile phone towers, to facilitate communication of the message. However, in the event of a natural disaster or the like, such infrastructure is often damaged or deemed ineffective, thereby significantly reducing the effectiveness of such systems to communicate important messages to the general population.
A system and apparatus for broadcasting a warning signal has been developed by the present Applicant and is disclosed in International PCT Patent Application No. PCT/AU2002/00796, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. This system is largely directed towards providing a means by which emergency vehicles are able to alert relevant individuals in the immediate or future vicinity of the vehicle of the presence of the emergency vehicle and to broadcast a pre-recorded message informing those targeted individuals of what they are to do via their radio or similar electronic device. Such a system and apparatus identifies all relevant radio channels in the immediate region surrounding the emergency vehicle and transmits a signal on each of those radio channels, the strength of the signal being sufficient to “over-broadcast” the relevant warning message on the radio channel for a predetermined distance, thereby alerting the relevant members of the population rather than all members of the population indiscriminately. Such a system is able to be controlled to target a desired group of the population or geographical area that may come into contact with the emergency vehicle and uses pre-existing devices, such as car and home radios, to deliver the message.
The Applicant's prior system referred to above has proven to be an effective means for transmitting an emergency vehicle message to individuals in the path of, or in the immediate vicinity of, the emergency vehicle. However, in the event of a natural disaster, such as a bushfire for example, there may be a need to transmit a variety of different messages across a variety of different regions of the population, depending upon the location of those individual(s) to the bushfire front. Such messages may vary from a general warning that advises individuals to take precautions and be alert of the presence of a fire; through to evacuation messages and other more immediate warnings. In such instances, it is fundamental to the safety of those individuals present in the relevant regions that they receive the most appropriate message from the originating message source, according to their circumstances, in order to carry out the appropriate action that is most relevant to their immediate needs. Further, as such systems are typically employed in remote regions, there is a need to provide a more efficient device that is of a size and configuration that is easily transportable for easy set-up and installation and which has low power requirements thereby obviating the need for the device to be reliant on an existing power supply.
Thus there is a need to provide an emergency warning system that is able to be used in a mobile manner for use with emergency vehicles and the like, as well as a fixed manner to provide roadside warnings and community regional warnings as required. There is also a need to provide an emergency warning system that can be simply and efficiently installed in location and which has the ability to provide personal warnings to individuals that may have special needs as a result of physical impairments or the like, such that a message can be broadcast to be received by a user's existing radio or personal electronic device, as required.
The above references to and descriptions of prior proposals or products are not intended to be, and are not to be construed as, statements or admissions of common general knowledge in the art. In particular, the above prior art discussion does not relate to what is commonly or well known by the person skilled in the art, but assists in the understanding of the inventive step of the present invention of which the identification of pertinent prior art proposals is but one part.